It's Hard To Be Holy

EP. 99: Chapter III (Cont'd)

Coarse and Offensive Language. Reader Discretion Advised.

'Hold up a minute,' said Colin, wringing his beard free of foam and droplets of beer. 'When ya first showed up here, ya made such a big-fuckin'-stink about bein' an Arab and not a Jew. But you're tellin' us ya are?! Why don't ya make up your goddamn mind?!'

'I am not Jewish!'

'But ya just said that your wife was speakin' the Hebrew!'

'Yes. She was Israeli Jew. And I am Palestinian Christian!'

'I get it now,' smiled BB. 'Nah, Colin, it all makes sense. The man's a bloody anarchist.'

'CHRISTIAN! CHRISTIAN! HOW MANY WAYS I HAS TO SAY UNTIL SUN-A-DAY! I AM CHRISTIAN!'
'It's not the Christian part we're strugglin' with,' sighed Colin into his drink. 'I mean, that's...well, confusin' enough. But really, it's the rest of you that makes no—'

BANG!

The front door opened with a shattering wallop, and a cold gust of wind thrashed through the snug interior. 'Jesus-fuckin'-wept! Close that door!' Colin bawled at the figure of his eldest grandchild, much the striking vision of her father in countenance and size, who crossed the hearth stooped and bundled against the freezing night air.

Alanna did as she was asked, but when she turned back to face the patrons and relations of the establishment, they all stared at her with looks devoid of welcomeness. Leers of disgust and apprehension were the looks that, as far as Detective Mooney was concerned, were not all too dissimilar to the ones she had grown accustomed to in her childhood. Only the bartender, moments before aflame with passion, seemed at all glad to have her present. Indeed, at the sight of the lady, he spread open his arms and called in a raucous voice:

'Officer Carr! Ah, but it is a pleasure to be seeing you again. You are looking as wonderfully beautiful as the first time my eyes are laying upon you.'

They had only met once before, and briefly at that. It had happened on the second day of the Father Peter investigation. Detective Mooney had come to the parish bar to question O'Toole on whether or not he, being the publican of the neighborhood, had noticed anything out of place, even strange, amongst his rather peculiar clientele in the days leading up to murder. Instead, she had found O'Toole passed on, and in his place, a man only a quirk of fate could have installed in the place of the departed.

The original interview had not lasted long, and if Alanna recalled correctly, which of course she did, because the lady was good with her details as much as she was her big and sweeping pictures, most of it had been spent with the accented fellow pestering her with questions on the difference between TV shows and reality.

'Kojak!' he had said. 'You is knowing Kojak?'

'Yeah...'

'Is it...how you say...realistical?'

'Oh...um...I mean, it's a TV show, so you know—but it's pretty good. I watch it sometimes.'

'Ahh, so you like Kojak! Okay, good then! We will be being the best of the friends!'

On the search for information, 'friends' in recalcitrant neighborhoods are good things to have, especially if they are one of the few purveyors of distilled, brewed, fermented, and otherwise potent, libations. Yet, after 20 minutes of talking utter nonsense about the Palestinian's favorite, American police officers, (his excitement at the discovery that Elliot Ness was a real man was only outweighed by his near tearful joy at learning that Alanna knew what a Palestinian was), the sturdy Detective Mooney missed the grunting, monosyllabic O'Toole, not to mention the terse parishioners who still resided above ground. She never thought she would have to return to the bar after that day, nor confront the foreigner again...